Thomas Catenacci of the Washington Free Beacon details a disturbing link between a prospective American contractor and the Chinese.
On its face, Orano Federal Services, a North Carolina-based nuclear fuel cycle company, is a plausible partner for a $900 million Department of Energy contract to produce uranium for America’s nuclear plants. But the firm’s parent company, the French majority state-owned Orano Group, works with two Chinese military companies to boost Beijing’s nuclear power industry, something experts and industry officials warn should disqualify the firm from receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars.
According to Orano, the company has a long-standing uranium supply and technology transfer partnership with the China General Nuclear Power Corporation as well as a number of active contracts with the China National Nuclear Corporation, both of which are state-run entities the Pentagon classifies as Chinese military companies. “Orano is supporting durably the development of the Chinese nuclear industry,” the company touts.
Earlier this month, the French government signed an agreement with China to further cooperate on “nuclear fuel supply, nuclear equipment manufacturing, and the security of uranium resources.” That agreement will almost certainly leverage Orano, in which France owns a 90-percent stake.
While Orano’s partnerships with the Chinese entities are on their face designed to boost civilian nuclear uses, the Chinese Communist Party has for years pursued a military-civil fusion strategy using private intellectual property, research, and technological advances to further China’s military aims. That’s why the DOE took action to prevent China from using American civil nuclear technology for military purposes in 2018 and why the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cut ties with China General Nuclear Power Corporation in 2021.
Orano Group’s pursuit of federal funding, then, raises serious national security questions and appears to undercut the very reason Congress created the program Orano is bidding to participate in.
As part of bipartisan legislation passed in 2023 and 2024, the DOE is required to purchase domestically sourced low-enriched uranium to reduce the influence foreign adversaries, namely Russia, have on the U.S. nuclear power industry.
